Can You Prove Your Children Are Yours When Traveling? Read About The “Georgia Nine” Case and the Challenge These Families Faced!
Can you prove your kids are yours while out in public or during your travels? Do you carry their birth certificates or social security cards around with you while out and about? The main thing we always make sure of is that we have our drivers license, vehicle registration/title and proof of insurance readily available just in case. You never know when you might need to show these items to a law enforcer. But never have we thought about carrying our children’s personal records just in case someone challenges us to prove that they’re ours. This is the challenge that nine parents were faced with on their way back home from a church conference in Louisiana.
On the way back home they had to make an emergency stop in Mississippi because the pastor of this Atlanta group became ill and had to seek medical care. While the group waited for her to be treated some of the children decided to take that time to raise money for their church dance team. The articles don’t specify exactly how this was done. I can imagine they held up posters along the sidewalks by main streets as they asked drivers for donations. Back when I was in school, our dance teams used to do short dance performances in their uniforms to really get the attention of drivers for big donations.
Whichever way this was done, it caught the attention of a social worker named Philana Harrell who accused the parents of child trafficking. Yes you heard it right. How did having fun raising monies for their church dance team turn into a child trafficking case? This social worker took these children into police custody. She told the parents before they could get their children back, they had to prove they were theirs by showing photo id’s and birth certificates.
One couple decided to travel back to Atlanta to get the forms that were requested. But by the time they returned to the police station the requirements to get their children back had changed. Now they had to do fingerprinting and background checks as well. These children remained separated from their parents during this entire time.
I remember one of the posts @canadian-coconut had written for her friend Anna where she gave us her Rule #4...
ALWAYS BE AT THE NEXT FAMILY COURT DATE, After Your Child is Taken into Custody.
You may purposely not be informed that you should attend this hearing.
If you do not attend, the Judge will see you as an unconcerned parent and it will be a mark against you.
This is just another part of their strategy to make you look bad as if you are an unfit parent. A hearing was set for the following Tuesday but Harrell told the parents it would be on Wednesday or Thursday. Although no written notice of the hearing was given, the parents learned the truth of the actual day by accident after securing counsel.
Unfortunately all of the kids were taken into state custody and placed in foster care. Can you imagine this? Being away from your child all of this time trying to prove they are yours only to have them placed in foster care in the end. Even after you have cooperated and did as you were asked. Can you imagine the damage it caused just in this short time? This damages the trust and the feeling of security that a child has with their parents. Let alone the things they probably witnessed or had to be around while in care could have changed them forever. In fact some of the foster families proved to be abusive.
It took nearly 5 months after that church trip for all of the children to be back home with their parents. The crazy thing is none of the parents were ever charged for any crimes nor neglect or abuse during this whole duration. There was only the initial accusation of child trafficking from the social worker that caused this whole ordeal. She dragged out the parent-child separation by suggesting more documents be collected to prove they were the parents.
After reading this case I did some research on traveling domestically and internationally with children. Normally when traveling domestically by land, you don’t run into these types of problems with needing to show child documentation. If you are traveling this way with children under the age of 18, they don’t need a special ID. This goes for flying too. However it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start carrying a birth certificate. Security has become a lot tighter with the rise of child abduction cases in custody battles and in cases where children really are victims in trafficking. Because of these rising cases if you are traveling as the only parent, the Department of State suggests a consent letter from the other parent. If your child is over the age of 18 and has a DMV ID, they should carry this with them when traveling by land or flight.
Any child any age traveling out of the country needs a passport. This is where consent forms are very important so you don’t run into any problems with international authorities. If you ever travel with unrelated children, it’s important to have a signed consent form from their parents!
Reading cases like this makes us want to be even more cautious and prepared for the worse. We have decided when traveling outside of our state with our children, we will have copies of their birth certificates and social security cards. With the way things are changing and getting more strict we can never be too cautious. You’ll hear me say that a lot in the posts I write because it is so true. We don’t want to be caught in a situation where we would have to leave our kids in the care of someone else just to try to prove they are ours. In fact, one of us would have to stay behind because there’s no way we’re leaving our kids unattended in anyone’s hands that claim to be of any child service agency or law enforcement personnel.
I hope this article helps you be more prepared when traveling with your children. Always be prepared for the worse and give no one any reason to take hold of your children.
If anyone has had an experience or a situation they faced dealing with these sorts please shed some light for us. The more information we know the better prepared we will be to protect our families.
Thank you so much for reading and for your attention to this. Let’s help each other keep our families safe and together!
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The thing about a birth certificate is that there's obviously no photo, so theoretically you could have somebody else's child and pass them off as yours by showing your own kid's birth certificate.
I read one story (take with a grain of salt since it was on a forum, not a news report) where a woman's crazy mother in law accosted her and her baby in a parking lot and when the cops came, the MIL claimed the baby was hers. The real mom had no documents, but she did have the camera roll on her phone, with hundreds of photos going back to the baby's birth that made it clear the child was hers. Maybe not a bad idea to make a photo compilation of yourself and each kid that shows that you and the kid(s) have always been together.
This is such a great point! I didn’t even think about how a birth certificate shows no photo. Thank you for sharing that story and making that photo compilation suggestion. I will do this as well.
You have me all paranoid now about flying to MT this summer, haha, but in a good way. When I flew with the kiddos before, I did take along copies of their BC's, and I already had the photo history idea, but I never thought of the letter from my spouse as yet another layer of protection. I'm going to have a whole arsenal of proof with me at this rate :)))
That’s awesome! We can never be too prepared! 😉
That is a great idea! I have a lot of pics of my kids, but I'm rarely in the pictures with them (at least on my phone). :) Something we need to work on!!!
I have to steal the Husband's phone in order to find pics of me with the kids, lol. He doesn't take very many (why do men never think of it?!) but at least there's occasional evidence that my children have a mother!
Nice! Ha! My husband takes pics of things like gears, parts that are needing to be replaced on the car, and stuff like that. He recently took his dad to a fun tourist place near us and I asked him to take pics. He took one of a plant and one of his dad's back while walking up a trail. Lol. This place is a total photo op at every turn. And he took them to hold sloths and monkeys...and took one pic of one brother holding a monkey...when four of them held both. Gotta laugh to keep from crying sometimes. Ha!!
This is completely unconstitutional. That's like someone accusing another of possessing a stolen car with no evidence, the car seized and impounded for 5 months, based only on an accusation. If this can't be done with a car, why can it be done with children? @ironshield
Yes it is @ironshield! It’s completely insane that this could be done with children and they actually had the power to keep these parents separated from them. It makes no sense and it’s so scary that this is allowed to happen.
My friend who was half black, half white was traveling with her mother and school friend, crossing the France/Switzerland border. The police officer looked at the white mother and thought the school friend, who was also white, was her daughter. Obviously there was a lot of confusion, but fortunately, there were able to sort it out. Goes to show you always need identification, especially if you have interracial children.
Yes this is definitely true! It’s always good to have it in case you run into situations as these. Thanks for reading and commenting.
This is just RIDICULOUS!
I wouldn't doubt that somewhere a Social Worker has called parents "Child Traffickers" for letting their children run a lemonade stand or sell cookies door-to-door. It's just whatever that Social Worker feels like doing that day. And these people were EXTRA unfortunate to not be in their home town to produce these documents quickly. However, even if they were it probably would not have stopped the 5 months spent in foster care. They probably were just sending the parents on a wild good chase for the documents, while they connived other ways to keep the children in their 'care.'
Something else interesting to note, which I have had personal experience with, is that some very disturbed people like to accuse others of exactly what is their own worst fault.
So what came to my mind, is that this Social Worker was accusing the parents of EXACTLY what she is the most guilty of -- Child Trafficking. What CPS did was exactly what they said they were attempting to stop.
It just a sick, sick system and it has to be dismantled because there is no hope for reforming it from what I can tell.
It is very ridiculous and hard to believe they had to go through five months of this. I feel the same way about what they did. It seems they were just dragging the time as they planned what to do with their children.
I totally agree with your thought, she accused them of what CPS is guilty of. It’s just so sad. I don’t see it ever changing but only getting worse. It really has to be done away with in order for families to stop being targeted and tormented for no reason.
As a non-custodial parent, I always keep the divorce decree, any agreed upon items in writing signed by both parents (or the email trail showing the same), copies of their birth certificates and the photos. I also have them have state Id's just because -- even though they are under 18.
When you've been falsely accused one too many times, you OVER PROTECT yourself (even though you shouldn't have to!).
When I've traveled in the past with my kids across state lines I have a huge file folder of all this with me, a digital copy backed up on two hard drives, a copy in the cloud and a list of important phone numbers I can call, like my parents, other relatives I'll be visiting, the other parent's phone number, court case numbers, lawyers and the non-emergency phone line to the law enforcement in the area I'll be staying (in case I need to follow up on getting reports, etc.).
I'm armed to the teeth with paperwork. If you're in this situation and something like this happens, you're going to be so angry, scared and stressed out you will need those phone numbers written down on paper in your face so you know who to call for help.
I can't wait till we just can put all of this on a public, permissioned block chain, have those in power verify what you're saying is true and flip both middle fingers straight towards your false accuser -- no matter who that might be.
Edit: I don't care who the false accusations are coming from. The resulting fallout is all DAMAGE and the allowing of it needs to end.
Wow! Now this is being prepared! This is so smart and responsible of you to have all of these documents readily available. I’m sure I would be the same way if I have been accused of something before.
I like the idea of having everything listed on a permissioned block chain, that will be the day! Thank you so much for your input and response to this post.
This post has been upvoted and resteemed by @thethreehugs. Thank you for your supported of @familyprotection!
Thank you dear friend!
You are most welcome!
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The classic example of government "protecting" children was the young girl taken away from her family because of "inappropriate contact" with her father. When she was placed in foster care the social worker left and the girl was promptly gang-raped by the other kids in foster care.
That just breaks my heart. That poor young girl, that is just so sick and twisted that she had to go through that. She left from one harmful place right to another. The system doesn’t work and it sure doesn’t protect anyone.
Oh wow! That's terrible!! I can't believe it took them 5 months to get the kids back and they weren't even accused of anything!! That is insane!! This is a good bit of advice for anyone traveling with kids! We need to do a better job around here... We recently took the kids to the border and then I realized we had no passports, visa cards, IDs, birth certificates or even copies of any of that. I had pictures of these documents on my phone...which I left at home. Essentially I would not be able to prove they are mine if asked...except that they look just like me. Ha. It was a dumb move, but thankfully no one asked anything. This is definitely a good reminder.
We have a friend here who got residency status and has been unable to leave with her kids. She is separated from her husband and he will not allow her to go back to the US (all US citizens, but permanent residents here in Panama). She has to have written consent to be able to leave with the kids from him and he won't give it to her. It is sad, but the courts say it is the law to combat human trafficking. Really crazy and sad.
Yes this was very terrible and unnecessary separation. I am so glad I came across this case because it alerted us to be better prepared while out with our kids. I’m so glad you didn’t run into any problems!
That is really sad about your friend. I can’t imagine how hard and frustrating that is to have to deal with that.
Yes, my friend's case is really crazy and sad. One of the spouses is going to have to give in at some point... This article really did get me thinking! Here they allow a copy/photo to count as proof (of having a license, etc.) so I just need to get some pics taken of the birth certificates and all! And always have my phone on me. ;)
Yes that’s a good idea! When you get a minute please check out @mtnmeadowmomma’s comment above! She raised some good points and gave an awesome idea...